Former Defense Chief Robert McNamara Dies

Former Defense Secretary Robert Strange McNamara died on Monday July 6, 2009 at the age of 93. He was born in San Francisco in 1916. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of California-Berkeley and an MBA from Harvard. He served with the army air forces during World War II. He was also a young Harvard professor as well. He was in the army from 1943-46. He was the former CEO of Ford Motor Co. in 1960 and then in 1961 President John F. Kennedy chose McNamara to be the head of the defense department. MacNamara was considered one of the "best" and "brightest" that Kennedy assembled in his cabinet. MacNamara served in that capacity under Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson before resigning under pressure in January 1968. He then obtained a position at the World Bank in 1968 and was there until 1981.

He was known as one of the corporate "whiz" kids at Ford. Kennedy tapped him for the job in 1961. He was second to Donald Rumsfeld as far as the length of tenure he served as Defense Secretary. He was considered the architect during one of America's greatest tragedies during the Vietnam War. He was known for using quantitative analysis and imposing business practices on the Pentagon. His trademark was rimless glasses and dark slick-backed hair.

The strategy that he helped develop in fighting the Vietnam War was a failure because Vietnam didn't have a winning strategy. They didn't allow for North Vietnam to be bombed as well as the war was fought on a limited, protracted scale. In his 1995 memoire, McNamara had misgivings about the Vietnam War as early as 1967. He still prosecuted the war as Vietnamese and U.S. casualties mounted. The troop levels in Vietnam swelled as the war escalated, and major U.S. protests were taking place as the war dragged on and became more unpopular. He was pressured in stepping down due to the progress of the war. Critics had then dubbed the war as "McNamara's war." It was said that one of his faults when it came to running the Pentagon was he tried to apply an analytical framework on the organization of people and money. He was applying management concepts to a conflict alien to his experience, said defense analyst Loren Thompson.

When McNamara was at the World Bank, he was involved in fighting world poverty. He also expanded the World Bank's influence as well. Fighting poverty was one of his crusades. After he retired, he maintained offices in Washington, D.C. He was on several corporate boards as well as the Washington Post. He also was a member of the Trilateral Commission as well.

McNamara is survived by his wife, Diana Masieri Byfield, (2004) and two daughters and a son. His first wife Margaret died in 1981.